Battlestar Adama
by Every Shade of Blue
Summary: Set between the miniseries and 33. It's pretty obvious that Lee didn't make the best first impression on the chief when he arrived on the Galactica, but later on, the two of them count each other as friends. Oneshot explaining how this may have happened, in which Tyrol comes to understand a bit more about Galactica's new CAG and his relationship with his father.


He couldn't sleep. He'd tried so damned hard, too, every trick he could think of. Nothing worked. And the night dragged on.

_What will happen tomorrow if I don't sleep tonight? _he thought miserably. _Maybe tomorrow, the Cylons will find us again. Maybe they'll find us and attack us and we'll send our boys out there to fight them… and maybe some of those boys will die because the chief of their deck crew was too frakking tired to prepare their ships properly! _He groaned, tossing and turning. That couldn't happen. He had to sleep.

_Frak this._

Maybe he should go down to the flight deck now, get a head start on the work he had lined up for tomorrow. Since he wasn't tired yet, he could at least try to do something useful. With a heavy sigh, he rolled out of bed and began to scour the dark room for a clean set of tanks.

The corridors were mostly deserted at this time of night. Maybe somewhere in the ship, probably near CIC, there was someone up and about, keeping an eye on the fleet while the rest of Galactica slept. But down here near the flight deck, everything was silent and abandoned. Padding noiselessly through the hallways, the chief finally reached the hatch that led to the hangar. He wasn't sure why he was making such an effort. It wasn't as if there would be anyone inside to disturb. Nonetheless, he carefully pushed the door open without a sound.

He wasn't alone. There was someone else in the room, sitting on the floor with his back to the door, hugging his knees to his chest as he stared up at the Viper in front of him. Tyrol recognized it easily as the commander's old Mark II, the one Lee Adama had flown at the decommissioning ceremony. As a matter of fact, the man sitting on the floor appeared to be –

"Captain Adama?" Tyrol approached him uncertainly. He wasn't sure how he felt about Galactica's new CAG. The younger man hadn't made such a wonderful first impression, but at the same time, he was apparently a more than decent pilot. At any rate, though, Tyrol kept his distance. He didn't know the captain nearly well enough to say how he would feel about being disturbed.

Lee didn't seem to mind, though. He didn't even seem particularly surprised. "Hey, Chief."

Tyrol moved a few steps closer, trying to see the other man better in the dim light. "Couldn't sleep, sir?"

"No," Lee answered quietly. "And it's the middle of the night and we're alone. You can drop the 'sir' if you want."

Tyrol shrugged. "All right, then." Maybe Lee Adama wasn't so bad after all.

"I'm guessing you can't sleep either."

Tyrol shook his head. "I figured I'd come down here and work a bit. Sometimes helps."

"I could leave if you want."

"You don't have to do that. I'll just sort of, er, work around you."

The corner of Lee's mouth twitched in a slight smile. "Fair enough."

Tyrol walked over to a tool caddy nearby, began to gather some materials. "If you don't mind me asking, s-" He paused, wondering what to say instead of 'sir.' "Um… "

"You're allowed to call me Lee. Or Apollo. Or, you know, whatever," Lee supplied with the barest hint of amusement in his voice.

"Okay, then," Tyrol acknowledged. "If you don't mind me asking, Lee or Apollo or whatever… what's got you acting like an insomniac? It's been a hell of a day. You should be exhausted."

"So should you," Lee pointed out, not answering the question.

"True. But I know why I'm here. What I want to know is why _you're _here." Truth be told, Tyrol wasn't even sure why he was asking. He still hadn't decided whether or not he liked Galactica's new head pilot. But there was just something about him that seemed so… troubled.

_Not that that doesn't apply to all of us right about now, _he thought grimly.

Lee seemed to be pondering how to answer the question. "I don't know," he said finally. "I don't know why I'm here. I just couldn't fall asleep, and for some reason this damned ship was all I could think about."

"This damned ship saved your life today," Tyrol pointed out more than a little defensively. After all, he and his crew had put a hell of a lot of effort into restoring the old Viper to its former glory.

"I know," Lee said quickly, noticing that the chief was upset. "I'm sorry. Really. You guys did an amazing job with it. It's just…" He shook his head in annoyance. "I don't even know. My Dad and I…" He trailed off, unable to complete the thought.

Tyrol sensed that they were approaching the heart of the problem. "You don't get along."

Lee laughed humorlessly. "You could say that."

"I heard a rumor that the two of you had a falling-out two years ago," Tyrol said carefully, knowing full well that he was broaching a sensitive subject. "After – after your brother died."

Pain flashed briefly in Lee's blue eyes – identical to his father's, Tyrol noticed – before he turned away, staring down at the floor. "It's not a rumor. We did. But that wasn't when it started. For as long as I can remember, he just… he was never there. He always put the military before us, and Mom never handled it well. I practically raised Zak myself." It briefly occurred to Lee to wonder why he was telling a virtual stranger so much about his personal life. He never even realized that he was saying all the things he wished he could say to his father. Wished… but never quite managed. But the chief was still listening, and Lee suddenly found that he didn't particularly want to stop. So he continued. "I never even knew how to act around him. I mean, sure, he was my dad, but… he was the commander, too. He was all orders and drills and uniforms, even when he was at home. I never learned how to talk to him, and he – he never _tried_ to talk to me. By the time Zak died, it had already been years since we'd had any sort of a real conversation."

Tyrol watched the young man sitting next to him, already seeing him in a different light. The glimpse into his life that Lee Adama had just impulsively offered him had explained so much, probably a lot more than Lee knew.

"That's why you didn't want to fly his Viper. You're following in his footsteps now, but you don't want to be just like him."

Lee nodded slowly. "I guess. Don't get me wrong, I respect him. I know he's a great commander, and I know what you and everyone else on this ship see in him. But I've seen too many of his flaws… he's just not a hero to me anymore. He's barely even a father."

"You know he loves you, right?" Tyrol asked suddenly.

Lee looked at him, surprised and more than a little confused. "What?"

Tyrol shrugged. "It's just… he thought you were dead. We all thought Colonial One had been destroyed. I wasn't there with him when it happened, but I saw him later. He was still giving orders, still _leading _like he always does, but… there was something so different about him. I could tell he was upset. Didn't he seem glad to see you when you got back?"

"He hugged me," Lee admitted. "First time since I was a kid. I didn't know what to do." He let out a heavy breath, running a hand over his hair. "What are we supposed to do now? I'm his CAG, for frak's sake! This kind of thing is never supposed to happen. And I don't think anyone here trusts me. I'm the new kid, the outsider, and worse yet, I'm the _commander's son. _Will any of them trust me to lead them?"

"Do you trust yourself?"

"I don't know," Lee answered softly. "I don't feel like a leader. I'm not like him."

That much was true, Tyrol was sure. Lee Adama was not his father. But he was wrong about one thing.

"I may be just a petty officer, Captain, but I don't think that's entirely true." Tyrol stood up and began to put his tools back where they belonged. He started to walk toward the door, then paused and turned back. "I know a leader when I see one. And sir…" He grinned, shrugging slightly. "I'd follow you." He opened the hatch and stepped through into the corridor outside, closing the door behind him. He was suddenly feeling much better than he had before. Maybe he would get some sleep tonight after all.

Inside the hangar, Lee got to his feet and paced slowly around his father's old Viper, brushing his fingertips over the cold metal. He paused next to one side, staring at the words painted just below the cockpit:

**William 'Husker' Adama**

_Apollo, _he thought suddenly, pondering his own callsign as he looked at his father's. _Son of Zeus. But a different person… not Zeus himself._

Maybe he _could _work with his father. Maybe he even loved his father. Maybe things could be different now… a second chance for the two of them, a chance for the Adama family to learn how to _be _a family.

"I'll try, Dad," he whispered to his father's ship in the quiet darkness. "I will if you will."

Across the hangar where he stood behind a Viper watching his son, Bill Adama heard the quiet words. Not wanting Lee to know he was there, he murmured his answer under his breath.

"I will."


End file.
